Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Tomatoed out - How to increase yield

So, I read that tomatoes yield more if you snip the majority of their leaves. That perfectly made sense to me since not soo much energy is lost on making leaves but can directly go into producing juicy tomatoes.

It also helps, to every now and then neglect them (read NO WATER FOR DAYS!) until the remaining leaves look droopy. If you water them then, they will shoot out a gazillion of flowers since the plant thinks it has to prepare for its demise and therefore get the next generation on the road. The result: MORE TOMATOES.

Then just before they are perfectly ripe, you turn the water off again to increase the sugars in the tomatoes. Ahhh, you will be glad you did!

So, I did my part on the large tomatoe harvest and my bees did theirs and here we are with already over 20 lbs of tomatoes harvested and simply no end in sight because they just keep making more.

Seriously, I need to start thinking about canning them, because with an Italian in da house, there is always a need for more tomatoe paste. And I have no canning stuff at home and never done it. That is a recipe for disaster....

My sister also anticipated my drowning with tomatoes and found an old book from our Papa's, in which there was a recipe for KETCHUP. She promised to mail it. Cool, as soon as I get it, I will do that, too!